|
Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character
|
|---|
Jonathan Shay. 246 pages. New York: Atheneum Press; 1994. $20.00.
This is a stunning, startling, erudite, and moving account of the author's experience trying to help a group of Vietnam War veterans redo their characters, which were so badly damaged by the combat trauma of that senseless war. The medical syndrome the author treats is conveniently labeled "post-traumatic stress disorder" and 250 000 veterans still endure it more than 20 years after the end of the war. Most suffer in silence, alone, because they still cannot talk about the inhuman events and the stressful atmosphere of the Vietnam War.
Dr. Shay, a classical scholar as well as a psychiatrist, contrasts Homer's account of the Trojan Wars 3000 years ago with his own experience in Vietnam. He makes many specific comparisons, but believes that the moral degradation that occurred in Vietnam came from the failure of leaders at all levels to "do the right thing" (themis in Greek). The war, basically, was morally wrong.
This reviewer thought that "going berserk" was a literary rather than a clinical term, until Dr. Shay taught me otherwise. Berserk is derived from a Scandinavian word for "bare shirt." Achilles went berserk when his companion and friend Patroklos was killed in combat by Prince Hektor of Troy. Achilles charged off without his armor (bare-shirted), killed Hektor with his lance, and then defiled Hektor's body. The killing of a close buddy often provoked a berserk episode in soldiers in Vietnam, leaving them either dead or amnesic for the event. Dr. Shay believes that episodes of berserk behavior have a a grave prognosis for psychiatric recovery.
This book is beautifully and sensitively written. Initially, I felt that interspersion of references to the Iliad would prove contrived and artificial, but the Homeric comparisons are interesting in themselves and break up the stark tragedy of the described experiences in Vietnam. All citizens should read this book to gain perspective about war and about stress of all sorts, but I particularly recommend the book to all who have authority over others: parents, teachers, doctors, politicians, business persons, and military persons. Society is having much trouble "doing the right thing" as our lives become more complex. Achilles in Vietnam can provide moral guidance as we start a new century, the third millennium after Christ, and the fourth millennium after the Trojan wars. Can we learn?
Article
